The Tandy RadioShack 80 Model 100 ... better known as the Trash 80. The sticker in the upper left is from the Sun Bowl.

If you were a journalist in the mid-1980s, you might have been singing the praises of RadioShack. The Fort Worth company had come up with a more efficient data transmission device.

In 1983, it introduced the TRS-80 Model 100. Journalists referred to it as “the portable.” The laptop-esque computers were called Trash 80s, but they weren’t trash.

The Trash 80s were game-changers. Clearly, a reason to celebrate.

No longer did you have to rely on archaic attempts at portable computing (including the Texas Instrument’s Silent 700 Terminal and the TeleRam Portabubble terminal). No more time spent on the phone dictating word-by-word to another poor soul back at the newsroom.

When RadioShack declared for bankruptcy last week, it struck a nerve among people who welcomed the Trash 80, cursed it and now remember it with affection as the devices collect dust in storage closets.

Recently, a couple of journalists took to the new-fangled Interwebs and The Facebook to remember their Trash 80s.

In a post, Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis called the development of the TRS-80 line as “the greatest machine in the history of the press box.”

“The people from the larger newspapers … were a bit snooty carrying around their Portabubbles, and looking down at those of us stuck with the TIs. And then the world changed in 1983, when the TRS-80 Model 100 portable was released for sale. TRS stood for Tandy Radio Shack … the developer and the outlets where you could buy one. They were so reasonably priced that we could buy them ourselves if the newspaper balked.”

James Peipert, who was East Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press, recalled his use of the TRS-80 Model 100 in a Facebook post. Peipert wrote that he helped New York Times medical correspondent Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, transmit a long-researched report about an emerging disease called AIDS.

“We sat at a desk in my study, hooked up the couplers to Larry’s TRS-80 and sent his copy winging down the phone line into the London computers and on to The New York Times. At the time, it was a miracle of technology – thanks to what was then a cutting-edge company in Fort Worth, a place where I would later live and work.”

My Trash 80 survived all kinds of sporting events, including college bowl games and Cowboys games. It has been in a state of retirement for more than 20 years in my closet.

The list of store closures has been posted; the Chapter 11 filing, old news not even a day later. Already my RadioShack, at Forest and Marsh lanes, has a 75-percent-off everything-must-go sign posted in the window. It’s the end of Blockbuster all over again as another locally based company, once on the bleeding edge, bleeds out all over the linoleum.

It breaks my heart, because I really did receive TRS‑80 Microcomputer News as a kid; we learned how to write programs on the Trash-80 at Alex W. Spence Middle School, and it was the first computer my parents ever bought. Still have my TRS-80 Pocket Computer. Can’t find my TRS-80 Model 100, the first laptop I ever owned thanks to the Dallas Times Herald. I hear they’re still pretty handy in a pinch.

The company’s close to 100 years old. But there’s a generation of us in our 40s for whom RadioShack was a more-or-less toy store — where we bought our first turntables, our first computers, our first headphones and, of course, all our batteries. And my mom’s briefcase phone was a Tandy product. So as we say farewell to RadioShack, a Tandy product, we look back with these vintage ads — back when it delivered on its “We’ve Got It All!” promise. It did. It won’t. Not ever again. Continue reading →

With a Beat-the-Blackout antenna, you could watch Bob Hayes catch touchdown passes even without having a ticket to the game.

Not long ago, I got to play the part of Aging Dad and tell my four boys about the Hardy Boys-like adventure of watching the Dallas Cowboys when I was a kid. (I had just entered the third grade when Dallas’ new pro-football franchise began play in the Cotton Bowl in 1960.) My boys flat-out didn’t believe me when I told them that ALL Cowboys home games used to be blacked out, even during and after their first winning season in 1966. That season ended with the Cowboys playing in what was then known as the National Football League Championship Game, even though Super Bowl I would follow a few weeks later. That’s right — the ’66 title game in the Cotton Bowl was blacked out in the Dallas area, even though you had to pay a scalper to have a prayer of landing a ticket.

I was thrilled to attend the game, which happened Jan. 1, 1967, exactly 48 years ago yesterday. Hard to believe. I went with Dad, Mom and Uncle John, all of whom are gone now, to that Great Skybox in the Sky. We sat a few rows behind the Cowboys bench on about the 30-yard line. Dad did a great job of scoring tickets early.

But back to the blackout rule: We did not have season tickets until 1968, when I bought them with my paper-route money (with sideline seats priced at $6, a kid could do that back then). So if we wanted to see the game and did not have tickets, we had to drive to Lindale, to my grandparents’ house, and watch the game on Channel 7 in Tyler, outside the 75-mile blackout perimeter (stations in Sherman and Waco also carried the games). We were forced to do this until a really cool thing happened and both Dallas papers printed a diagram and instructions for building your very own Beat-the-Blackout antenna!

This contraption consisted of a single narrow bed slat and five coat hangers of the following lengths: 28, 27, 25, 24 and 23 inches. The 27-inch coat hanger had to be split in two and stripped of any paint on each end, allowing it to make contact with each frazzled end of the exposed antenna wire. The snake-like antenna wire would then extend all the way from the attic — where Dad mounted the darn thing, teaching me some new words from his vocabulary — to our black and white television (I don’t remember us having a color television until the 1970s). Since we lived in Pleasant Grove, we were in Southeast Dallas and thus closer to Tyler than we were to Sherman or Waco. So, Dad’s job was to point the bed slat bearing five coat hangers straight toward Tyler. With me hollering instructions from the living room, and him in the attic, this was part of the madcap joy of making the thing work. “No, back the other direction just a hair! No, too far! Go back the other way!” As you know, science can be difficult.

What amazed me about the blackout antenna was that it worked! Granted, it wasn’t the best picture in the world — it had what was known in the analog world as “snow” in the picture — but you could follow the game without missing a play and you could hear the play-by-play just fine. “Meredith back to pass … Hayes is open … touchdown!” I did a bit of research in the archives of The Dallas Morning News and found a story by Kent Biffle, dated Aug. 28, 1967, that reported some people beating blackouts with “broom-stick and coat-hanger antennas.”

In later years, local electronic stores started selling their own versions of Beat-the-Blackout antennas — a reader tells me these were advertised as Cowboy Antennas — but I don’t remember them being any better than the bed slat-coat hanger contraption. Snow still proved a pesky nemesis, and reception was much better under an overcast sky than bright sunshine.

As you might imagine, Cowboys management welcomed the Beat-the-Blackout trend about as much as a misplayed punt. Then president and general manager Tex Schramm, in a story bylined by Bob St. John on Dec. 15, 1970, even hinted at legal action against bars, apartment complexes and private clubs that wooed fans with their own Beat-the-Blackout antennas. Talk about Goliath going after David. Schramm blamed the antennas on a decline in Cowboys attendance since the magical season of 1966, failing to note that the Cowboys losing out in championship games between 1966 and 1969 might have had more to do with it. (The Cowboys’ failure to win a championship extended from 1966 through Super Bowl V in 1970, when they lost to Baltimore, earning them the moniker “Next Year’s Champions.” They finally got it right by beating Miami in Super Bowl VI, 24-3, winning their first of five Super Bowl titles.)

What amazed my boys was the bizarre history of all this and how ridiculous it was for the NFL to black out games that had long been sellouts. (Can’t think of any other sport that resorts to blackouts.) And none of it changed until 1973, when Congress — yes, Congress — was forced to intervene.

Even the so-called Greatest Game Ever Played in 1958, pitting the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, was blacked out in New York, despite the sellout at Yankee Stadium. As Wikipedia tells us, fans rented hotel rooms in Connecticut and Pennsylvania to watch the game on television, a widespread practice among Giants fans through the 1972 season (this also happened in Dallas, with hotels outside the blackout area offering beat-the-blackout specials, which included even a free breakfast if you chose to stay over). If you want to read more about the history of NFL blackouts, click here.

Under the category of Totally Ridiculous, even Super Bowl games, played before January 1973, were blacked out in the city hosting the game.

Here’s what changed things: In 1972, the Washington Redskins made the playoffs for only the second time in 27 seasons. Because its home games were blacked out, as they were for any NFL team, politicians, including then-President Richard Nixon, an avid football fan, were prohibited from watching Redskins home games. Despite a plea from Nixon attorney general Richard Kleindienst, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle refused to lift the blackouts. That forced Kleindienst to go so far as threaten the NFL with having its prized antitrust exemption removed. So, Rozelle agreed to lift the blackout for Super Bowl VII on an “experimental basis.” But Congress took it a step further, passing Public Law 93-107 before the 1973 season. That’s the law still in effect: The blackout for any and all NFL games must be lifted if the game sells out 72 hours before kickoff. That’s why you still see blackouts in such cities as San Diego, Buffalo, N.Y., and Jacksonville, Fla., where sellouts are sometimes hard to come by.

I’m happy, though, that the stupid blackout rule allowed me to make my very own Beat-the-Blackout antenna. I was so inspired by such technological genius that, for a while, I even subscribed to Popular Electronics. Who would have thought a bed slat and five coat hangers could make a kid so happy?

The Adventure to Santa structure sits at center court on the mall’s lower level, just below the food court. It’s a 2,000-square-foot attraction where visitors can take a 15-minute virtual journey to the North Pole with Shrek characters. It’s fun for the kids and the technology will interest adults.

When we tried it out, we saw lots of wide-eyed kids excited about prospects of building their own sleighs using touchscreen devices and getting to meet Santa. The staff was engaging and made it fun for everyone.

Best of all, it’s free. But if you really have to spend money, the interactive also offers photo packages at the end of the experience. You can also cut the wait by registering online. And you know how important it is to minimize the wait while you’re shopping with kids.

DreamWorks also has similar attractions at seven other locations throughout the country. The Arlington location is the only one in Texas, so take that, Houston.

Adventure to Santa, open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, will be in place until Dec. 24.

Twitter users favored Luke Bryan for Entertainer of the Year over George Strait, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and East Texas woman Miranda Lambert.

UPDATED at 9:45 a.m. Nov. 6: Before the CMA Awards Wednesday night, we posted graphics showing some of the Twitterverse’s favorite country music performers. The question was: If Twitter users favor a certain artist, will he or she win a CMA Award?

Twitterers don’t choose the CMA Award winners, of course. Those tough decisions are left to about 6,000 CMA Members who come from dozens of countries and hold a variety of jobs in the country music industry.

But it’s worth pondering: How much does popularity affect who wins?

In the case of Entertainer of the Year, the Twitter favorite was also the winner. Luke Bryan won the night’s biggest award and was also the far and away fan favorite, according to Twitter.

Interestingly, East Texas woman Miranda Lambert was the second-most mentioned artist on Twitter during the show, behind Carrie Underwood. Lambert was up for a record number of awards — nine — and won four.

The Twittersphere’s opinion on New Artist of the Year and Song of the Year didn’t match the CMA Members’ votes, however. Twitter favored Cole Swindell for New Artist of the Year, but Brett Eldredge won. And Lee Brice’s song “I Don’t Dance” was mentioned more than his competitors for Song of the Year, but Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” won.

#YouWinSome. #YouLoseSome.

Click the graphic below if you want to geek over Twitter data from Wednesday night.

Original story: East Texas woman Miranda Lambert is up against four men for Entertainer of the Year in Wednesday night’s Country Music Awards. She might not win, if Twitter trends are an indication of how the awards show will go.

On the Twitter blog, Andrew Adashek posted graphics that show fandoms surrounding each country artist. For Entertainers of the Year, for instance, Twitter created an interactive map that measures the “global volume of conversation” around each country artist, according to a Twitter corporate spokesperson. Fans’ allegiances seemed to change since January 2014, with Lambert’s hubby Blake Shelton popular in the U.S. in June but Luke Bryan sustaining a majority of the tweet mentions throughout the year.

Which means: According to Twitter, Luke Bryan is the fan favorite for Entertainer of the Year. (Sorry, Miranda.)

But we’ll have to wait and see if CMA Members voted the same way, because Entertainer of the Year is not chosen by the general public.

Shelton, Bryan and Lambert join George Strait and Keith Urban as Entertainer of the Year nominees.

For the New Artist of the Year nominees, Cole Swindell was the most mentioned on Twitter. So will he win? No way to know. But he seems to be The People’s favorite.

As for Song of the Year, it’s no contest, if Twitter were calling the shots. Lee Brice’s song “I Don’t Dance” was mentioned in the most Twitter conversations — and in fact, he “won” 47 of the 50 states.

The next few years of movies based on comic books got a lot clearer this week when Warner Brothers announced a ton of titles and date for upcoming DC superhero flicks they’re working on. The biggest two movies are sure to be Justice League Part One and Part Two, which are coming our way in 2017 and 2019, respectively. They’ll be directed by Zack Snyder, who you probably know from Watchmen or Man of Steel.

But the Justice League characters can’t all be contained in a couple of films, so you can expect to see a ton of movies based on individual characters between now and 2020. I’m personally excited that a Wonder Woman flick is on the way, but we can also expect to see the likes of The Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern, who probably won’t be played by Ryan Reynolds this time around. You can find more dates and casting details at dallasnews.com/geek, as well as a huge list of all the superhero movies coming out in the next six years.

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And because Marvel isn’t one to let DC hog the movie spotlight, they’ve got big plans for their cinematic future as well. Variety reported earlier this week that Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man will be making an appearance in Captain America 3. That in itself isn’t a huge deal, because crossovers are bound to happen at this point, but what’s interesting is that according to Variety’s sources, Iron Man’s appearance will actually set up the fan favorite Civil War storyline that would ultimately pit Iron Man and Captain America against each other in a truly epic battle between groups of heroes. It would be the perfect stage on which to set the third Avengers movie, so my fingers are crossed.

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Lastly, Apple announced some new hardware this week, most notably the iPad Air 2 and a new iMac. The iPad upgrade is more or less what you’d expect — it’s a lot more powerful, the screen is better and it’s even thinner than its predecessors. The new iMac, on the other hand, is perhaps most notable because of its screen, which Apple says will support resolutions up to 5K. Considering that most TVs hitting the market right now are bragging about 4K as the next big thing in picture quality, that’s an interesting move for Apple to make.

Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces the new Apple iPad Air 2 during an event at Apple headquarters on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014 in Cupertino, Calif.

Today, Apple announced a slew of new products including the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3 and an iMac with a 5K retina display.

Aside from a few new details (such as the fact that Apple Pay will launch on Monday, October 20), much of the early presentation was devoted to telling everybody stuff that most of them probably already knew. New iCloud features, such as the ability to work on the same project across multiple devices with a feature called Continuity, were things already discussed at earlier Apple events. They patted themselves on the back for selling a lot of iPhone 6 units and reminded everybody that they’re making a watch.

But things really kicked off when they announced the iPad Air 2, which they called the “world’s thinnest tablet.” It’s a mere 6.1mm thin — 18 percent thinner than the first iPad Air. In fact, Apple claims that if you stack two iPad Air 2s on top of each other, they will still be thinner than the original iPad. They also bragged about their new anti-reflective coating, which they say makes the iPad Air 2′s the least reflective of any tablet on the market.

Inside it’s got an A8X chip (the big brother to the iPhone 6′s A8). They say the improved hardware inside the tablet brings a 40 percent jump in CPU speed, while their new GPU brings 2.5 times faster graphics processing. They say this is 12 times after than the original iPad, with 180 times the graphics performance. If you’re into taking photos and video with your iPad, the 8MP iSight camera will be up your alley.

The iPad Air 2 will run you $499 for 16GB of storage, $599 for 64GB and $699 for 128GB, provided you go with a WiFi-only model. Adding cell service will make each price jump up $130.

They also announced the iPad Mini 3, but they did so in a real “drive by” manner, barely mentioning that the device exists before giving its price and moving on to the next item on their agenda. It features a 7.9 inch Retina display and Apple’s Touch ID home button, but beyond that they didn’t get specific.

Desktop Mac users will be more interested in the new iMac, which has a 5K display — notably one more “K” than the current trend of 4K televisions on the market right now. That’s a resolution of 5120×2880, and is 67 percent more pixels than 4K (7 times more pixels than a standard HD TV).

The new iMac won’t come cheap, but it seems fairly reasonable for what you get. It will run you $2499.

Similar to the iPad Mini 3 announcement, Apple also announced a new Mac Mini, but didn’t get incredibly specific about its features. They billed it as a great “first Mac” for new Apple customers, though, and its price makes a good argument for that, starting at only $499.

You think you’re on the cutting edge because your PC is running Windows 8? Or maybe you know you’re hip with the times because you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1? Well bad news, grandpa! History left you in the dust and Microsoft just announced Windows 10. What happened to Windows 9? Nobody knows, we all missed it. That’s just how fast Microsoft iterates these days, I guess. Rumors from an anonymous Reddit user claiming to be a Microsoft employee suggest that this is due to the way third party software is coded for Windows — namely, that some software is taught to see any Windows OS beginning with the number nine as either Windows 95 or Windows 98. This, you can imagine, would cause quite a few problems.

In non-Microsoft news, The Pokemon Company made waves this week by releasing a version of their popular Pokemon Trading Card Game on the iPad. A lot of people see this as a sign that Nintendo might be embracing the idea of putting their games on phones and tablets, but don’t go expecting a touch-based Mario or Zelda game just yet. The Pokemon Company is just separate enough from Nintendo that it can pretty much do whatever it wants with its card game, but the full-fledged RPGs are still going to be exclusive to Nintendo hardware. Still, the card game is free to play on the iPad, so it’s worth giving a shot if you need a break from Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering.

Lastly, Sony and Microsoft announced the free downloadable games they’ll be giving their PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live subscribers, respectively. Highlights from the PlayStation side of things include Batman: Arkham Asylum, Spelunky and a PlayStation Plus exclusive version of Sony’s new racing game Driveclub. The selection for Xbox fans is a little more sparse, but they do get the great action RPG Darksiders II, the critically acclaimed shooter Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the just-released indie game Chariot.

What’s up nerds? I’ve pulled myself away from Bungie’s latest game Destiny in order to give you a rundown of this week’s biggest geek news. Topics covered in the video above include the Apple Watch, leaked Super Smash Bros. characters (including one you may have grown up hating) and a man dressed as Pikachu storming the White House.

This week Apple finally announced its long-rumored entry into the smartwatch market. Doing away with the iEverything naming scheme they’ve dubbed it simply the Apple Watch, which they say will launch in early 2015 starting at $349.

We know a lot about the watch already (for example, it will require an iPhone, it will tell the time and you can use it to share your heartbeat with another person, because that’s not at all weird or creepy), but there are also things we don’t know, or are just now learning. For instance, the battery of the Apple Watch is only expected to last about a day, forcing you to charge it every night.

But overall, what’s the consensus on the thing so far? Are people excited? Skeptical?

Unsurprisingly, many of the most notable reactions on social media are comedic. For example, Ellen DeGeneres’ wise, highly educated observation:

So excited for the Apple Watch. For centuries, we’ve checked the time by looking at our phones. Having it on your wrist? Genius. #AppleLive

Along those same lines, YouTube star John Patrick “Jack” Douglass (jacksfilms) was quick on the draw with a video parody that got a lot of people laughing quickly.

Other celebrities are just buying into the hype while acknowledging that they have no idea why they’re hyped. For this, you can look to one of the world’s foremost experts on exaggerated reactions to things: Stephen Colbert.

On more serious notes, various writers and outlets have expressed much more thoughtful opinions. Time published the headline “Apple is killing the joy of personal style,” in which their writer argues that Apple is threatening diverse fashion. “Every additional fashion creation from Apple will inadvertently create a less diverse shopping landscape,” the story says. “Sure, we could chalk it up to innovation—but if our timepieces become as uniform as our cell phones, the loss of the Rolexes, Seikos, Breitlings, Patek Phillipes, and Swatches of the world would be an even sadder loss for fashion as a whole.”

Entrepreneur.com says definitively that “the Apple Watch is no game changer,” claiming that it is not the revolution that the iPod, iPhone and iPad were and that its sales numbers will put that into perspective.

What about the men in suits? Well, Mashable says that Wall Street analysts are very excited about Apple Pay, the company’s venture into secure electronic payments. The Apple Watch, though? Not so much. The high price and requirement of newer iPhones (the watch only works with iPhone 5 and higher) were listed as concerns. MarketWatch reports that Apple’s stock went down following their announcement event.

BuzzFeed, meanwhile, makes the case that with its optional smaller size and variety of design options, Apple really wants women to fall in love with their watch.

U2 is certainly a charitable group, but there’s a huge marketing opportunity here, obviously. Lead singer Bono said in a statement, “It’s exciting and humbling to think that people who don’t know U2 or listen to rock music for that matter might check us out. Working with Apple is always a blast. They only want to do things that haven’t been done before — that’s a thrill to be part of.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook said it’s the “largest album release of all time.”

Songs of Innocence will be available for the next five weeks on iTunes, according to a press release. Customers must be at least 13 years old to download it. The album will become available on Oct. 14 via Interscope Records.

Today in California, Apple announced a bunch of new (if expected) products: Their next iPhone, a new system for mobile payments and — the biggest one — a smartwatch.

First up, the company debuted the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, which if you couldn’t guess is a bigger version of the iPhone. They’re both thinner than previous iPhone models, and they have a curved edge. Many people have compared the new look to the iPad, which is apt. The 6 Plus in particular could almost be called an iPad Mini-Mini. The iPhone 6 is 6.9 mm thick, while the 6 Plus is 7.1 mm.

Along with a better screen and slightly improved battery life over the 5S, the phone features an 8 megapixel camera, which is also capable of capturing 1080p video in 30 or 60 frames per second.

The new phones will ship September 19, but you can pre-order them starting September 12. With a two-year contract, the iPhone 6 will cost $199 for 16 GB, $299 for 64 GB and $399 for 128 GB. The iPhone 6 Plus, with its larger size, will cost an extra $100 at every step: $299 for 16 GB, $399 for 64 GB, and $499 for 128 GB.

But that stuff is iterative, not revolutionary. Something much more new from Apple is Apple Pay, their attempt at getting into the mobile payment industry. Apple is partnering with numerous banks and retailers to provide an alternative and, potentially, safer way to pay for things. Using an NFC chip in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, you can link your American Express, MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards (and even gift cards, apparently. At least in the case of Apple Store cards) to your phone and, instead of swiping your card when checking out at a store, you swipe your phone instead.

While Apple Pay only works with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, its hardware will also be included in the Apple Watch (see below), allowing iPhone 5, 5S and 5C users to take advantage of the service.

Worried about keeping all that valuable payment information on your phone? Fear not, Apple says. ”We don’t store the credit card number, and we don’t give it to the merchant,” they said. The system uses a one-time payment number and a dynamic security code. If your phone is lost or stolen, you can use Find My iPhone to suspend the device — no need to cancel your credit card. In light of more and more retail stores getting hacked, this could be a needed security upgrade.

According to Apple, 22,000 retailers will work with Apple Pay, including McDonald’s, Whole Foods, Macy’s Subway, Walgreens and more. It will also work with apps, and Apple is releasing an API for developers to take advantage of.

But the big thing, the thing people were most excited about leading up to the event, is the Apple Watch. “A precise, customizable timepiece.”

“Apple Watch will enable you to communicate in new ways right from your wrist by sending and receiving messages, answering calls to your iPhone, and with Digital Touch, sending something as personal as your own heartbeat,” Apple said in a press release. “Apple Watch also introduces comprehensive health and fitness apps that can help people lead healthier lives. Apple Watch is available in three distinct collections —Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition.” It’s also coming in two different sizes: two different sizes, 38 mm and 42 mm.

Apple Watch. (Apple)

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s a smartwatch. If you’ve seen the likes of the Pebble or the Samsung Gear watch, you know more or less what to expect. It’s a digital, touch-enabled watchface that’s customizable and ready for apps. That means you can use it to get text messages, find your way around the city with Apple Maps and more.

The thing Apple spent a lot of time touting was what they call the Digital Crown. It’s a little wheel on the side of the watch that the company expects will revolutionize smartwatch control the same way the clickwheel revolutionized the iPod. By twisting the crown you can accomplish a lot of tasks, including zooming in on a map, scrolling through a list and more.

The watch also sports tried-and-true Apple features like Siri, and will allow for a wide variety of third-party apps including Twitter, Facebook and American Airlines.

Worried about how it looks? The watch strap is interchangeable, with a variety of options to suit different people and situations. And were you wondering about the three different “collections” the watch comes in?According to Apple, those are: “Apple Watch, with a polished or space black stainless steel case and a choice of straps; Apple Watch Sport, with a space gray or silver anodized aluminum case and Sport Band; and Apple Watch Edition, with an 18-karat rose or yellow gold case and a choice of straps exclusive to this collection.”

The Apple Watch. (Apple)

It won’t be cheap, though. When the Watch launches in early 2015, they say it will “start at” $349.

If you want to relive all the announcements as they happened, a recap of our liveblog can be found below.

HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images

The Apple logo is seen in this September 11, 2012 file photo at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco. Tech trend-setter Apple charts its future course September 9, 2014 amid expectations for new big-screen iPhones and possibly an "iWatch" which could shake up the world of wearable computing. Apple has maintained its customary silence, but a frenzy of speculation suggests a push by Apple into a new segment as it seeks to broaden the appeal of its iconic iPhone.

They say professional gamers tend to play with their games/mouse set at a very low sensitivity, which requires them to move the mouse very fast in very large movements. On rare occasions, the optical sensor on mouse — even a high-end one — can fail when the mouse is moving too fast. It happens for only a split second (usually less than one tenth of a second, I was told). But for a professional gamer, that split second could mean everything. I was told a lot about the relationships Logitech has with eSports teams it sponsors (teams like Cloud9, a North American League of Legends team that’s currently making waves) and how they work with them to determine what might give them an edge future matches.

So Logitech came op with what they call the “Fusion Engine,” which uses an accelerometer and a gyroscope powered by an 32-bit on-board ARM processor to “augment the capabilities of the optical sensor” and, they say, fix this problem.

“Nobody else has done this,” I was told then talking to Logitech’s Christopher Pate and Brent Barry at QuakeCon. “Nobody has added an accelerometer and a gyroscope into their mouse. “A typical mouse, when you lose tracking — you’ve probably had this happen to you before, even though you don’t realize that you’re moving as fast as you are — but you move the mouse too fast it doesn’t know where you’re going. It just doesn’t track you. But the awesome thing is as soon as you start moving and the optical sensor doesn’t track you, the accelerometer and gyroscope know where you’re going,” one representative said, comparing it the the gyroscope capabilities in today’s smartphones. “And so they keep approximating where you’re going until the optical sensor can click back on.”

“And in terms of accuracy, they’re just as accurate as the optical sensor,” I was assured. “So it’s not adding any kind of uncertainty into the tracking data.” You’re not sacrificing accuracy for speed, in other words.

Previous mice that Logitech tested could track around 300 inches per second (IPS). Logitech says that the G402 can reliably track more than 500 IPS (I was told the number was around 580 IPS, which is “much more headroom than pretty much any pro gamer — or any gamer at all — will need in terms of being able to make fast, quick shots.”

Logitech

Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury

Other features of the mouse include left and right buttons that are rated at 20 million clicks, four DPI settings (to go from 4000 to 240 “in the blink of an eye”), and eight programmable buttons. One of the buttons is a so-called “sniper button” near the thumb rest. It also uses Logitech’s “Delta Zero” tech, which is the same sensor in the G400s and G602 mice.

They didn’t have the mouse on-hand during my meeting at QuakeCon, but they showed me another popular (and highly acclaimed) mouse of theirs, the G502 Proteus Core. That mouse has the same general form factor and many of the same features (programmable buttons, quick DPI switching, etc.) but retails for $79.99. When I asked what accounted for the $20 price difference (I was surprised that this new, “fastest ever” mouse is cheaper), I was told that the primary differences were the G502′s weight tuning (which allows you to adjust the mouse’s weight to your personal liking) and its metal dual-mode scroll wheel (a lock, more or less, that determines whether the mouses’s scroll wheel will keep spinning with momentum or will only move one notch at a time).

Even if you play games regularly, terms like IPS and DPI might mean nothing or very little to you. But Logitech has at least one pro gamer singing their praises. “Hyperion Fury is now the go-to in my hardware arsenal,” Braxton “Swag” Pierce, a Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) player is quoted as saying in Logitech’s press release for the G402. “It’s the mouse I have been waiting for.”

Logitech sent me a mouse to test late last week, so I’ve been using it for both work and gaming for several days. I’ll be clear upfront: I’m far from being on a “pro” level in any single game, and I’m not currently playing any twitch-based games on PC right now. I’m more likely to boot up Diablo III (or even Civilization V or Skyrim… nothing that demands much speed) than I am Dota 2, and I’ve been playing most FPS games on consoles lately (I know, PC master race. I’m sorry). So I am not the person to look to for an expert opinion on whether or not it does exactly what it says it does. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t know that the speed they’re hyping is a very big deal unless you’re a professional FPS player and absolutely demand that reliability.

Still, I played a few games with it over the weekend, including last year’s remake of Rise of the Triad (because I wanted to make sure to try at least one high-speed game), and I’m very happy with it so far. The form factor is really nice, it’s light, the on-the-fly DPI switching works as-intended and the extra buttons are well-placed so I don’t accidentally hit them when I don’t mean to (but they’re easy to reach when I do). Plus it’s got a nice, pulsating blue light, and I’m easily amused by shiny things. (You can turn that light off, dim it, or adjust how often it pulsates via Logitech’s customization software if you prefer, FYI.) It’s also been comfortable for general web surfing and other, more mundane PC activities.

To give you an idea of where I’m coming from, mouse-wise, this is an upgrade from the Logitech G400 I was using previously. I’m also a palm-grip gamer, rather than claw-grip, so keep that in mind when I say it’s comfortable to use.

So I’m not “reviewing” the mouse because, frankly, I’m not qualified to. All I can say is that I’m pretty happy with it after nearly a week of use. You can get your hands on it yourself when it hits stores sometime in August.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 02: Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone West center on June 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Tim Cook kicked off the annual WWDC which is typically a showcase for upcoming updates to Apple hardware and software. The conference runs through June 6.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) began today, and Apple’s keynote contained many new announcements about their upcoming products and developments. There were rumors (well, let’s be honest, they were mostly just hopes) that Apple would show off new iPhone models at the event, but they focused on software instead. I don’t want to dig into the nitty gritty of every tiny new feature or slight change to Safari, but I do want to give you a rundown of some of the biggest news.

The first bit of big news Apple announced was OSX Yosemite, the latest version of Apple’s operating system for desktop and laptop Macs. It’s available for developers today, but will be coming this Fall to everyone else, for free. With it comes a lot of improvements to iCloud, Safari and more.

Notably, AirDrop now works between iOS and Mac. This generated a lot of applause from the WWDC crowd. They also introduced Handoff, a feature which will allow you stop what you’re working on at your desktop Mac (whether it’s an e-mail, presentation or whatever), pick up your iOS device and immediately pick up where you left off. This works the other way around, too — start something on your iPhone and pick it back up on your iPad or Mac.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 02: Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speaks about the new OS X Yosemite during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone West center on June 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Tim Cook kicked off the annual WWDC which is typically a showcase for upcoming updates to Apple hardware and software. The conference runs through June 6.

They also introduced better connectivity between your Mac and your iPhone. Even if your phone is “across the house on a charger,” but it rings, your Mac will show you who is calling and even allow you to answer the call right there from your computer. Seems like a cool feature for anyone whose charger and computer aren’t in the same room.

They showed this off by calling “a new Apple employee,” Dr. Dre via the Mac, in a phone conversation that sounded completely natural and not at all forced or rehearsed.

iOS. After taking some digs at their competition (noting that many of their customers had moved to iOS from Android, Apple CEO Tim Cook said these people initially “bought an Android by mistake.”). Apple claims that their overall customer satisfaction rating for iOS 7 is at a staggering 97 percent.

So of course, if nearly everybody loves something, you should change it as soon as possible. That’s why today, Apple announced iOS 8, which is coming this Fall (developers have access to it today).

With iOS 8, Apple says they have refined the notification center, and have added “interactive notifications.” For example, if you get a text message notification at the top of your screen, you can slide it down and reply to that text right there at the top of the screen, without needed to switch to the iMessage app.

As with Yosemite, iOS 8 also features a bunch of smaller improvements for apps like Mail and Safari, including a better view of tabs in Safari and the ability to essentially minimize an e-mail you’re composing in order to get a better view of your inbox.

Apple also announced QuickType. Going beyond autocorrect, iOS 8 has support for predictive text support for its touch keyboards. For example, if you type “The meeting was,” iOS will try to predict what you want to say next, and will give you options like “canceled” or “moved” that you can type with the touch of a button. They say it will learn from your typing habits to try to improve its text predictions for you, specifically (though they stress that they’ll be maintaining your privacy). If you don’t want to type, you can also send audio and video messages as easily as you would send a text.

And have you ever been stuck in a group text message thread that makes your phone go off like crazy, which slowly sends you spiraling into madness? In my experience this happens every holiday, when well-meaning family members send a mass text to everybody they know, and then all those people just hit “reply,” so I get dozens of messages from people I don’t even know wishing me a Merry Christmas. Now, iOS 8 has a Do Not Disturb option for SMS threads. Just tap it, and you can disable notifications for that thread of texts. I’ve gotta admit, that sounds extremely useful.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 02: Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone West center on June 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California. Tim Cook kicked off the annual WWDC which is typically a showcase for upcoming updates to Apple hardware and software. The conference runs through June 6.

Noting that health-centric wearables and accessories (and the apps associated with them) are a big deal, Apple is introducing HealthKit, a way to gather all the info gathered by your Fitbit, your digital scale, your blood pressure monitor etc. and bring them all under one roof to help you better monitor your health. They’re working with companies like MayoClinic for this software, which they hope will encourage healthier living.

Got a family of Apple users? Apple is expanding its features for families. Most importantly, Family Sharing will allow up to six family members to connect as one family and share all digital Apple purchases, including music and apps. The catch is that they all need to be using the same credit card. One cool feature they mentioned was the ability for a child with an iPhone to be able to ask permission to buy an iPad or other content digitally. So say your son or daughter has an iPad that you’ve connected to your Apple ID, but you’re tired of them spending money on your credit card without asking you first (or, alternatively, always coming into your room to ask you to enter your password so they can buy more stuff). Now, your child can tap a button to ask you permission to buy something, for example, Minecraft on iPhone, and you can handle that transaction digitally.

Apple then shifted gears to talk directly to the crowd that was there: the developers. I won’t go into too much detail about that stuff, as it has less impact on consumers in the short term (and is only relevant if you get really excited about new programming languages, in which case you can get your info from people more knowledgeable than myself), but there’s some exciting stuff coming. For example, developers are going to have the option to sell apps to users in bulk (so, say, you could buy a pack of Lego games at a discount, if the developer so chooses), and they will be able to improve their App Store pages with videos instead of just screenshots.

They also touched on upcoming improvements to a variety of system-level functions and APIs. Two major examples: custom keyboards (so you can install, say, a Swype keyboard onto your iPhone, if you’d like) and full manual camera control.

Of particular interest to gamers, Apple about major improvements for graphics. They showed off EA’s Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (a console game) running on iOS, though they weren’t clear as to whether or not the game was actually coming to iOS or if it was just a fancy test of EA’s Frostbite engine on iOS. Epic Games then came onstage to show off an impressive looking zen garden tech demo, made in the latest Unreal Engine, running on an iPad. That zen garden app will be available for free as soon as iOS 8 is available.

Above all, the Fire TV is a media machine. It’s designed to play music, movies and TV from services like Amazon Instant Video, Netflix and Hulu Plus. It sounds like a pretty great competitor for the Roku, unless you really need HBO Go, who is mysteriously missing from the Fire TV lineup.

But one thing the Fire TV boasts over the Roku — other than voice commands that they assure you will work totally fine and not make you look like a dork screaming, “Orange is the New Black!” at your TV remote — is a relatively large collection of video games. While the Roku 3 plays games, according to Amazon’s own handy-dandy chart that device only plays fewer than 100 games (not surprising, in part considering your control opens with that remote are limited). The Fire TV claims “100+” with “(thousands more coming soon).” Notably, Amazon recently purchased game studio Double Helix, which was a clear signal that the company had eyes on the gaming space.

While cheap at $99, the Fire TV isn’t necessarily a slouch in hardware. While it won’t hold a candle to any of the consoles available from Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo, there should be enough power in that little box to fuel some OK game experiences. And they won’t set you back $50-$60 per title, like most console games do. Amazon says that the average price paid for an Amazon game is $1.85. Many games on the platform are free-to-play or available at prices like 99 cents.

But there are catches.

First, these games (or at least most of them) won’t be playable right out of the box. You’re going to have to spend an extra $39.99 on the Amazon Fire Game Controller. Not a horrible deal, as the controller seems to have some good battery life and includes most of the features you would want from a basic gameplay experience.

Second, a quick glace at the current game lineup will show you that most of the games on the Fire TV are the same games that are available on your mobile device, be it an iPhone, Android phone or your favorite tablet (like, say, the Kindle Fire).

That’s not to say that these games are all bad. Some, like Telltale’s The Walking Dead are actually phenomenal. But if you care about games already, chances are you have another device for these experiences already. Are you really interested in spending $140 for a game console that mostly plays the same things you played on your phone?

This was exactly one of the (many) reasons I didn’t fall in love with the similarly priced Ouya console. While it had potential, most of the games available on it were obvious ports from iOS and Android mobile games, sometimes complete with their obviously designed-for-touch-screen menus. The result is disappointing.

To their credit, Amazon seems to know this is a problem. That’s why they bought Double Helix. That’s why Amazon Game Studios is currently making games designed exclusively for the Fire TV.

But I don’t know if it will be enough.

To be fair, Amazon doesn’t seem to be putting all of their Fire TV eggs into the gaming basket. This is marketed much more as a streaming media device, and games are included as a “bonus.” But for all the talk of Amazon entering into the video game space as a hardware competitor, their execution so far is lackluster. But hey, I’ve liked Amazon’s previous hardware. I love my Kindle. So maybe the Fire TV will be magical too.

In an announcement post on the official PlayStation Blog, Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said, “I have long dreamed about VR and the possibilities it brings in regards to game development. This new technology will deliver a sense of presence, where you as the player actually feel like you’re inside the game and your emotions feel that much more real.”

At least in its current form, the head mounted display boasts a 1080p resolution, a 90 degree field of view, head tracking and motion tracking. It can work in tandem with the standard PS4 controller or PlayStation move for what Sony hopes will be “a plug and play” experience. Just connect Project Morpheus to your PS4 and go, in other words.

The announcement didn’t focus on specific upcoming games that will take advantage of the technology (that may be more of an E3 presentation), but GDC attendees will have the chance to try the hardware with a number of demos, according to Polygon, including a custom version of Eidos’ recently released game Thief.

Coincidentally (we assume), Oculus VR chose today to announce the second development kit for their popular Oculus Rift VR display. Developers can pre-order the kit for $350 starting today, and units are expected to ship out in July. This hopefully brings the company ever closer to a consumer version of the product, which will presumably be similar in price. It’s been a couple years since I tried the Oculus Rift myself while at QuakeCon, but I’ve been craving more VR ever since.

Hansenmania took another turn this week when something called The Parody Factory put up Dale’s refreshingly outspoken video commentary, albeit with a myriad of cleverly crafted twists and turns, turning it into a Hansen-written song called “Part of Mine.” Dale Hansen as Internet rock star? The Jackson Browne of cyberspace? Hey, why not? Maybe “Part of Mine” will soon eclipse Rebecca Black singing “Friday.” Remember that one, and the gazillion hits it got on YouTube? WFAA itself joined in on the fun Wednesday, posting “Part of Mine” on its own Web site. The Ticket, the bellwether of sports talk radio in Dallas, played part of “Part of Mine” to lead into the Norm Hitzges show earlier today.

Mae Whitman from NBC's Parenthood is part of the "streaming" experiment.

All of us know by now the dramatic effect the Internet has heaped upon the newspaper industry, the music business, the book publishing world and even radio. Television, they say, may be the next big domino to fall, with the Internet changing the way we watch it. In other words, will it forever alter the future of major networks, local channels, cable and satellite?

Who knows, but change is already rapidly taking shape in ways many of us never expected. Entire series are now being shown on Netflix (House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black) and via such destinations as Hulu and YouTube. Jerry Seinfeld gave us a glimpse of his new series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which you can watch right here.

Then came Monday’s announcement that NBC will offer, as an escape from the Olympics, four of its most popular prime-time series, Chicago Fire, Parks and Recreation, Grimm and Parenthood, in a digital-only format, to be “streamed” on NBC.com, Hulu and YouTube. Long gone are the days when my dad and I would spend hours installing a cheap metal antenna on the roof of our house in Pleasant Grove. This is the official announcement, which appeared on something called Deadline.com. Pretty soon, you won’t even need a television set. A smart phone or tablet should do the job.

As I understand it, these digital episodes will not be part of the normal narrative of the series as seen on the network, which is interesting in and of itself. This is part of what appeared on Deadline.com:

The four-part “Chicago Fire” digital series, “I Am A Firefighter,” focuses on Dawson (Monica Raymond) while she awaits the next phase of her firefighter training, as seen in recent episodes. While alone at the station, Dawson is faced with an emergency that puts her training and confidence to the ultimate test. The digital series directed by Joe Chappelle and written by Ryan Harris — will debut Tuesday, Feb. 11.

“Parenthood’s” digital series is titled “Friday Night at the Luncheonette.” Amber (Mae Whitman) is tasked with keeping an eye on her cousin Max (Max Burkholder), while also working after hours at the Luncheonette. When the band Crucifictorious shows up, Amber desperately tries to keep things under control while Max documents events with his phone. Guest stars Jesse Plemons and Derek Phillips reprise their “Friday Night Lights” roles of Landry Clarke and Billy Riggins, respectively. The four-part digital series debuts Thursday, Feb. 13. The “Parenthood” webisodes were written by Julia Cox (part 1), Monica Mitchell (part 2), Aaron Brownstein & Simon Ganz (part 3) and Adam Karp (part 4). Parts 1 and 2 were directed by Eric Tignini and parts 3 and 4 directed by Scott Schaeffer.

On the digital series for “Grimm,” Rosalee (Bree Turner) and Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) gather their girlfriends for a Valentine’s Day spa party, only to discover a Zieglevolk casting a love spell among the group. The four-part digital series, titled “Love is in the Air,” directed by Chip Touhey and written by Nick Peet, debuts Friday, Feb. 14.

In this story, on tvline.com, NBC officials reveal that in its “digital companion series,” Parenthood will welcome in alumni from the now-defunct series Friday Night Lights, which, of course, was based on the non-fiction book by Buzz Bissinger about high school football in Odessa, Texas.

This is part of the tvline.com story: “NBC announced on Monday that Parenthood’s four-part digital companion series, ‘Friday Night at the Luncheonette,’ will follow Amber [Mae Whitman] as she keeps an eye on her cousin Max [Max Burkholder] while working after hours at the recording studio. During Amber’s odyssey, Jesse Plemons and Derek Phillips will reprise their FNL roles of Landry Clarke and Billy Riggins, respectively, when the band Crucifictorious shows up to jam.”